The leader in the clubhouse for best golf story of 2009 is 22 year old Irish amateur Shane Lowry’s sudden death win over Robert Rock in the Irish Open at County Louth last weekend. The field was strong, including many of Europe’s top players. Mother Nature threw every type of condition at them that you might expect on a links course. It was alternately sunny, windy, cold and raining, and sometimes a combination of these conditions.

I hope some of you were able to watch the final round and playoff, as it was pure Irish magic. But better than the competition was the response of the pro-Lowry Irish gallery. Polite to the Englishman Rock and Sweden’s Stefan Edfors during regulation play, they were positively delirious over every good shot from their own upstart. And when the winning putt was holed, it was a mob scene on the green, reminiscent of the celebration of Bobby Jones winning his final leg of the Grand Slam! When was the last time you saw a golf gallery storm a green in a similar manner?

Rory McIlroy is a lock to be a giant in European golf for the next two decades and if Lowry can maintain this level of play as a professional, he may be a terrific Ryder Cup partner for him, a la Jose Maria Olazabal with the mercurial Seve Ballesteros. Future American captains won’t like the sound of that.

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